So Many Chats, So Little Time

Are chats coming in like a wrecking ball? It’s a great problem to have, but how do you manage them all? I’m here to share some tips we use on the Pure Chat support team that helps us manage a high volume of chats efficiently, while still providing excellent customer service to everyone.

Organize the madness.

Do you have five chats at one time? 10? 15?! You can’t respond to all of them at once. At the same time you don’t want to get caught up on one conversation. Respond to a user, then move onto the next customer awaiting an answer. You don’t need to stay focused on one chat at a time. Your visitors will see that you are still engaged in the conversation and will be less likely to leave prematurely out of rage or disappointment.

Share the wealth.

Is everyone on your team taking chats? If not, they should be, at least for small portion of their day/week. Checking in with your customers can help you learn a lot by hearing what they have to say no matter what role they play in your company. It can be eye-opening when a developer hears feedback directly or your head of product sees what their users are struggling to understand. With the whole team taking some of those chats off your plate, the customer experience improves, the product improves and sales increase. Everyone wins!

Prioritize by difficulty of completion.

There are chats that require a lot of ground work; more so than others. If someone is seeking a simple answer that you know off the top of your head, knock that chat out quickly. You can create canned responses (quick answers to FAQs) that make resolving those quick chats even easier. If you are getting hung up on a time-consuming chat, you are missing out on engaging with these other potential leads that are easier to resolve. Taking care of those easier chats more efficiently allows you to have more time to spend on difficult chats that require more work.

Communication is key.

This might seem obvious since you’re… well, chatting with your users already. Let them know you need a moment to figure out their issue or need to research something. This can be valuable time spent also managing the other users you’re chatting with. People are willing to wait (to a certain extent) if they know an answer is coming. If you spend a little time answering other chats while still trying to solve a website visitor’s issue, it’s all the same to your customer as long as you don’t forget about them.

Do you have to let it linger?

You haven’t forgot about your customer, but they may have become distracted by another cat video (like this one: http://i.imgur.com/fqd9uUj.gif) and left the chat open. When you get a chance, just give them a little nudge to see if they’re still there. After more idle time, just let them know you are going to close the chat, but if they need more assistance when they return to just start another chat with you. This allows you to focus on other more active chats so you don’t get overwhelmed by the high number of conversations that you are actually in.

I totally get that it can become stressful quickly. When there are twelve people needing you at one time, it can be terrifying. No matter how busy it gets, just keep in mind they are all current or potential customers. Then ask yourself, would you rather be in a ton of chats or none at all? Give them all the best possible chat experience you can so your business continues to grow.

Following these tips will help you manage those busy hours of the day so that everyone leaves the chat happy. This will also help increase the number of smiley face ratings you receive. 🙂 Who knows, maybe all these chats convert into sales for your company which makes it possible to hire more team members to assist with your chats!

About The Author

Robert is all about customer success and happiness at Pure Chat. When he isn't answering chats from our amazing customers, he is watching hockey, drinking beer and tinkering with his fantasy football lineup that always seems to fall apart in the playoffs.